If the terrorist plot has advanced to point where they're in the airport and an hour away from detonating a bomb, if they defeated the FBI, the CIA, the entire military to make it to that point, you think those guys in the blue shirts, with the bins and the shoes, are really going to be able to stop this plot?

We’ve been making this point for a long time: the best chance to catch a terrorist is through old-fashioned law enforcement and intelligence work.

[Emphasis supplied.] Citing Jeffrey Goldberg for anything is perilous. The implicit notion here is that "those guys in the blue shirts" are stupid lummoxes who couldn't catch a cold guarding a daycare center. Unlike us clever, highly educated professionals who are flying to Burning Man.

Note the second bolded portion. What does "old-fashioned law enforcement" mean in the context of terrorism? The unstated assumption is detective work, that is, work done by people in suits and ties, not in blue shirts. But blue shirts have been part of capturing terrorists or preventing terrorist attacks. Timothy McVeigh was caught by Oklahoma State Trooper Charlie Hanger, who pulled him over for a traffic violation and arrested him for carrying an illegal concealed weapon. In 2002, Whitney Donahue called the police to a highway rest stop, and Maryland State Police Trooper First Class D. Wayne Smith captured the beltway snipers. This year, a street vendor, Lance Orton, alerted New York City police officer Wayne Rhatigan to smoke coming from an SUV parked on the street. Rhatigan discovered the Times Square bomb before it went off. (It's possible the bomb would never have detonated, but he didn't know that and it's irrelevant anyway.)

Of course, detective and intelligence work have foiled plots and resulted in terrorists being captured, probably many more than uniformed police have or ever will (the number being unknowable because government figures on attacks stopped secretly are inherently unreliable).

Look, there are lots of stupid cops. That's true no matter what color shirt they're wearing or which agency they work for. It's true because there are lots of stupid people. TSA procedures probably make no sense, and the people in charge of the TSA are to blame for that. TSA screeners who behave badly should be fired. But people should stop thinking of them as mindless robots just because they are uniformed security.

Comments

You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.

You seem to be equating TSA security staff with uniformed law enforcement officers. That's like saying the line cook at Deny's is as capable as the sous chef at the Ritz.The training a TSA staffer working the line at an airport gets doesn't compare to going a police academy. Also the pay and benefits on offer for those positions isn't going to attract the same quality of personnel. TSA screeners are not highly trained law enforcement officers. They are marginally better trained for their jobs than minimum wage slaves who clean the restrooms at the airport. A bouncer at a popular night club is better paid and more security savvy than these folks.

That isn't classicism. It's a realistic assessment of who we're hiring to do those jobs,and how well they're prepared to do the work. The fact is the TSA would likely be prohibitively expensive if we had real cops doing these jobs. With the republicans sweeping back into power there's renewed talk of outsourcing TSA functions to private rent-a-cop outfits again. I wouldn't look for any improvement in security if we start putting minimum wage illegal immigrants back in those jobs again.

TSA screening at the terminal is little more than security theater. It's a way for government and industry to hurry up and look busy after they've screwed up. It's intended to give the appearance that they're "doing something". It serves as a pacifier for a skittish flying public.

Real security is provided by the military,state and local police,and those awful elitist professionals working in the intelligence field you were on about.

what M. Merritt said. You don't even need an associates degree to be a TSA screener. I think of them not so much as mindless robots, but burger flippers with a badge and a speculum.

Also, i think you may be confused. The "blue shirts" Goldberg refers to, as i read it, is not meant to encompass all law enforcement personnel, it is meant only for the TSA, who wear a particular shade of blue. i don't think he means the other boys-in-blue, the state and/or local police.

that's more goldberg's fault though, for using a term that can be read in a fairly broad fashion.

It doesn't matter whether TSA minions are as well trained as real cops (they're not, I agree). If it were real cops searching people, the outrage would be the same, because the kind of people who fly a lot don't want blue-collar types touching them. That's the reason this whole thing caught fire, not because people are suddenly concerned with civil liberties.

i disagree. It has nothing to do with the class of the people touching me, it has to do with the fact that it constitutes a gross violation of my due process rights, and it's creeping fascism. because you know another place that's targeted by criminals? banks: so maybe we should have patdowns and body scans there too. Same with liquor stores, which are always getting held up.

Hundreds of thousands of black people here in Philadelphia were randomly stopped on the street and searched by cops last year. No one gave a shit beyond a one-day local news story. The TSA isn't creeping fascism; fascism is here, and white middle class people don't give a fuck because it doesn't affect them. And if TSA changed its procedures to ethnically profile Muslims, white middle class people would be happy and think the "civil liberties" problem was solved.

just because the majority of Philadelphians, 52% of who can't fucking read beyond the 5th grade level, don't give a shit about something doesn't mean it's not important. I'll bet that the majority of Philadelphiasn don't give a shit about Afghanistan either, so would you argue that it's not worth pointing out that it's been an abbatoir of failure?
and: ahem:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpMcffyv31o&feature=player_embedded

now at the bus station. patdowns. it's about restricting people's freedom of movement.

Then we're arguing about different things. You're saying being searched without probable cause is a bad thing. I agree with that. I'm saying most of the outcry over the TSA is not motivated by widespread concern about freedom, it's motivated by protecting privilege. That criticism doesn't apply to you.

I'm also saying for most lower-income Americans, getting searched is just life. Did you see the guy in the video you posted who is happy he got searched?